


turn to hate

by qianwanshi



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: F/M, M/M, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Western, Yeehaw AU, cowboys n outlaws
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24064264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qianwanshi/pseuds/qianwanshi
Summary: The Denbrough Gang has fallen onto hard times, but with Bill there they know they'll pull through, they always have before.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 19
Kudos: 26





	1. Bill

**Author's Note:**

> This is my yeehaw au I've been yelling about on twitter nonstop and I love it. Something of a collab with my pals nntkiwff and usareis, thank you for being bros and yelling with me constantly about this dang au i love u guys.
> 
> This might have been birthed because Red Dead Redemption 2 lives permanently in my brain now and always will, but it's not a rdr au by any means. Though I used locations from the game for the sake of my sanity.

[[Journal Transcript: It has been four months now since Georgie was taken from us by Henry Bowers and his gang. To what end? For a couple of dollars? I find myself doubtful. Seems more like Bowers just likes killin’ for the sport of it.

I have very nearly lost track of how many months have passed since Audra left us behind to chase her dreams in the city. I am proud of her, truly, she deserves better than what she would have ever found with us. Perhaps one day I will even see her on the stage or in a motion picture.

Life ain’t the same with them gone. I feel I had just been approaching a new sense of normal when Georgie was taken and now I fear I shall never find normal again. I have not drawn or written any more than a dry recollection of passing daily events, I feel useless to these people, my family. Sadness surrounds me like a second skin and I do not know how to shake loose of it. 

Maybe I never shall.]]

\------------------

No one pays him any mind when Eddie Corcoran comes careening into camp one morning screeching about something. It’s not unusual for him, always yelling about this or that, indignant about the price of whiskey in the local saloon or the weather. He is as much of a loud mouthed ass as any of the others in Bill Denbrough’s gang of outlaws and it all settles in as background noise eventually. 

Corcoran’s young fair face is red and blotchy from exertion, light hair a mess on his head from where he had cut into camp through the thick trees that keep from from view of the main thoroughfare. Everyone carries on as usual. 

That is, until he scrambles up to Bill’s tent and shouts, breathless. “Pinkertons!”

A hush falls across the camp nearest to Bill’s tent. The folk hovering crowded around the cooking pot stop their banter, Richie and Stanley cut off in the middle of their morning ritual of bickering about nothing. Richie glances over at Bill and Eddie Corcoran, face unusually serious. 

“What do you mean?” Bill asks. “Where?”

“In town.” Corcoran bends with his hands on his knees and takes heavy gasping breaths. “Seen ‘em by the sheriff's station askin’ around.”

“You hear any names?” Bill moves from his tent to drop a steadying hand to Corcoran’s shoulder. 

“No, Bill.” Corcoran stands a little straighter, somewhat less winded than before. “I’m sorry, I didn’t. Ran straight here.”

“No, no, you did good.” Bill pats his back, solid and reassuring. “Go sit, have a drink.”

Corcoran nods his thanks and walks away. Already, a hushed murmur is creeping its way across the small camp like ivy. What they need now is a leader, and he thinks he still knows how to be that. 

“Mike!” He hollers, leaping back into his tent and digging through the small nightstand next to his bed. He finds what he’s looking for: the finely drawn map he and Georgie had spent no small fortune on together once upon a time. “Mike, I need you!”

“Here, Bill!”

Mike’s tall body is hunched over the big wooden table usually reserved for dinners and card games, clearing everything away to make room. Bill is there in a heartbeat, rolling out the large map with careful hands and using whatever dishes left nearby to hold the corners. Mike helps, holding down one curled edge gently, knowing perfectly well how important this map is to Bill. 

“This mean we’re moving again?” Mike asks. His voice is calm, quiet enough that no one else can listen in. 

“Most likely.” Bill scours the map. More than a few members of their gang have a price on their heads, even the first whisperings of law sniffing around them is cause enough to move on. “How’s our funds?”

“They’ve been worse,” Mike says, his voice lacking confidence. “What are you thinking?”

“Not sure.” He glances up, catches Mike’s dark eyes and looks back down. “South? Plenty of forest out by Valentine for a camp. Rhodes?”

Mike shrugs. “Your call.”

Bill turns and whistles loudly. 

“Richie, Stan!” He waits for their attention. “Take a ride down toward Valentine, you know what to look for.”

They both nod and hop into action, back to their tents to dress and gear up to make the trek South to go scouting. They’ve done it before and Bill trusts them resolutely to find what is best for the gang. 

“Patty?” She stops in her tracks, shortly behind Stanley on the way to their tent. “You and Betty head into town? Mike will set you up with a small grocery list and the funds.”

He glances at Mike who nods his confirmation, already reaching for a pencil and his journal, scribbling onto a blank page at a rapid speed. Patty nods and carries on, back to her tent to send Stanley along with well wishes. 

“Beverly!” Already standing by, Beverly steps forward. “Me and Mike are gonna go gather up some things, we got money stashed nearby. You and everyone else see to it this place is packed up?” 

“No problem, Bill.” She turns away, already brushing her fiery red hair back and into a braid with swift fingers.

Mike finishes with Patty, handing over enough cash for his list before joining Bill on his way off to where their horses are grazing. Behind them, Beverly is already barking orders at the rest of the gang and throwing them into action, precisely why Bill left her in charge over anyone else.

“Corcoran, help Kaspbrak load up his supplies!” 

A moment later, almost too faint to be heard as they ride away, Eddie Kaspbrak snaps. “ _Don't_ break nothin’.”

\----

Mike always makes for good company, on the road or at camp. He’s silent, but not dull or empty-headed. Quite the opposite, actually, there’s good reason Mike tracks camp funds and supplies and Bill doesn’t. He’s got the mind for it. He’s well read, too, so conversation between them never seems to fall to awkward silence. It’s been something Bill relies on since Georgie died.

“Maybe Valentine’ll be nice,” Mike suggests over the sound of hooves on dirt. “I’m not itchin’ to go farther South but I’ve heard word it’s a decent town with decent folk.”

“I heard about the same,” Bill answers. “And you know if anyone gives you or Patty a hard time, you just say the word.”

“Yeah.” Mike smiles, all charm. “I know, Big Bill.”

The camp stash isn’t far, shoved down in the root of a tree a little ways away in a spot recorded in Mike’s journal. It’s all a well worn routine to them now, grab the stash, split it between them, and go on back to the camp before moving along. Bill stores his half in the satchel at his hip and Mike stands, shoving his half into the saddlebag on Rock, his horse. 

They’re about halfway back to camp when a young boy runs out at them from over a hillside.

“Mister! Help!” He waves his hands above his head, voice cracking at the desperate pitch he hits. “Please help!”

They slow to a stop and the boy stumbles over his own feet in front of them, gasping to catch his breath. “Please, we had a crash and my ma needs help!”

He looks on the verge of tears, frantic, waving them down from their horses. Bill leaps down and Mike follows, leaving the horses at the side of the road.

“She’s just over here!” The boy points and takes off. Bill and Mike follow, steady. “Our horses got spooked and took off.”

Sure enough, they hit the crest of the hillside and see a crashed up wagon, wheels all wrecked to shit and luggage sprawled wildly across the grass. A woman is laying next to the wagon, one broken wheel collapsed down on top of her legs. 

“Oh, bless you!” She calls when she sees them following her son down through the grass. “Please help me.”

“Miss, are you hurt?” Mike asks. They both scramble to her side, grabbing onto the spokes of the wheel to lift it up from her legs. She’s dressed nicely, perhaps not wealthy but well-groomed, long skirts bunching up under the weight of the wheel.

“Nothin’ I can’t handle. Thank you.” She shuffles back in the grass on her hands, curling to pull her legs away from any further danger of being crushed. “Those damned horses.”

“You need a ride into town?” Bill asks. He knows more than well enough the types that hide out in these parts, could never bring himself to leave a woman and her child out here alone. 

The tell-tale click of a gun being cocked.

“No, I don’t think she does,” a man’s voice answers, sending Bill’s heart plummeting into his stomach.

Bill and Mike drop the wheel back into the grass and freeze, arms slowly raising. 

“That’s right, boys,” the man says. “Turn around, slow now.”

Bill turns and sees Mike doing the same, looking back at him with wide eyes. There are two men, one with a beard and the other without, both have guns trained on Bill and Mike. The woman, now standing, has a gun as well as a wicked smile on her face. The boy is gone, likely hidden in the trees if Bill had to guess. 

“Don’t do nothin’ stupid,” the beardless man says. He moves forward, the bearded man and the woman keeping their guns trained on Bill and Mike respectively. 

Outgunned, they make no move.

“That’s right.” The man’s free hand grabs across Mike’s body, digging into his pockets and the small satchel slung across his body. He doesn’t come back with much, a couple dollars at most.

Then he moves along to Bill, groping carelessly before digging into his bag.

“Hoo- _wee_!” He pulls his fist back out from the bag, grubby fingers clenched around half of their camp funds: nearly a hundred dollars. “Lookie here, boys!” 

He has to close his eyes, he _cannot_ watch half of their money be ripped away right in front of him. The other two folk hoot and holler right along with him. Big lucky day for them, Bill thinks. 

“Bill, it’s alright,” Mike murmurs quietly beside him.

“Y’all hit the road!” Beardless turns back to them, gun pointed again. “Arms up. If I even see your fingers twitch toward that fancy little gun you got-”

“Blam!” The woman finishes for him with an annoying cackle of a laugh. 

They hike back up over the hillside, waiting until they’re well out of view to relax their arms despite the fact that their robbers more than likely took off like demons the second their backs were turned. 

“We should go after ‘em,” Bill growls, hand already on the gun at his side. The hot flush of shame burning the back of his neck giving way to boiling anger. 

“We should _not_.” Mike’s hand closes over Bill’s on the hilt of his gun, stopping him from pulling it out. 

“That’s half our _funds_ , Mike!” Bill shouts. He wrenches away from his grasp. 

“Exactly! It’s only _half_ , Bill.” Mike’s voice is steady and low, unwavering in his surety. Sometimes Bill thinks Mike would make a better leader, his ability to _believe_ goes unparalleled. “What the gang needs right now isn’t a hundred dollars, they need you not bein’ shot up for chasing after a bunch of fools for some money!”

“ _Our_ money.” Bill rips off his hat to run a hand through his hair. He drops his forehead against Silver, his horse, who snuffles loudly at him. 

“We’ll make it, Bill. We’ve made it through worse.” One big hand claps against Bill’s shoulder and Mike is gone, climbing back onto Rock, ready to ride home. 

——

It takes the better part of the day to get everything packed up, even after he and Mike return from their trip. Bill packs what sparse belongings he has so they’re wrapped up secure and shoves them onto one of two wagons with space. He steers clear of the wagon full of Kaspbrak’s medical supplies, he doesn’t have the energy to deal with how paranoid the man gets about his things being broken. 

He still has a wrapped up bundle of some of Georgie’s things, his journal, some of his clothing, his gun. He doesn’t know what to do with any of it. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to take a proper look at it, afraid of what he might find. Nor has he had the strength to get rid of it. He knows he will carry it with him on to their next camp, and the next after that if it comes to it, continuing to not look at it and refusing to get rid of it. Locked into inaction by dread. 

They’ll move out at first light, quiet and early enough to avoid most any attention while they head to a new destination. 

The new campsite Richie and Stanley found for them is decent enough, based on their descriptions. Behind some thick trees on a plateau far enough from town to stay hidden but close enough to wander in when needed. It’s a nice space, with room for them to sprawl out a touch more than their current setup.

The gang makes up a fire and eats what’s left to be eaten that hasn’t been packed up, but Bill retires early to his tent. He pulls the canvas down and shuts out the noise and the chatter. By dim lantern light he writes and, eventually, falls into sleep.

\------------------

[[Journal Transcript: We have once again found a new camp for ourselves. I hate to uproot everyone again but they have taken it all in good spirit. I am thankful for them all and thankful for the reminder that we are a unit, we are at our best when we are working together. 

Was robbed with Mike today. Taken for a god damned fool by a child. Mike believes it will all be okay. I want to believe him, but I am not so quickly convinced. We are all of us alive though. 

Unfortunately, because I have not had my fill of bad news today, I have cause to believe that Bowers’ gang may have camp in New Hanover as well. Now, it is a big state, but I fear Henry will not see it that way. Our best gunmen, including Beverly, are aware of the threat and keep an unwavering guard outside camp at all hours. 

I am not the revenge seeking type, for which Henry Bowers can thank his maker, but I will protect what family I have left to no end. (hand drawn birds-foot trefoil flower)]]


	2. Beverly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back! These chapters are most likely gonna all be pretty short, for now at least, but that just means I'll be able to update pretty frequently!

[[Journal Transcript: We’ve passed several days in our new camp outside of Valentine and it is surprisingly quite nice! The weather in these parts is mild, not that damp heat of the South. I shall cling stubbornly to my hope that we see out winter here and I do not need to look at a single flake of snow. The land is spacious and so we have a bit more room to spread out than we did before. God willing I will no longer suffer through long nights of Ricky Lee’s snoring right beside my tent. Richie and Stanley still buckled down near to each other, I do not know how Patty has the patience to live with them acting like they cannot be more than five feet apart. 

Spirits throughout the camp ain’t very high. Bill is despondent, just as much as he has been for months. Mike is quiet, Eddie don’t stray very far from his wagon and he snapped at Corcoran no less than six times while they was packing! 

Perhaps if I ask, Bill won’t mind if I spend a little extra money on some good meat in town and make us up a stew. I know I’m not the greatest at cooking in America, but I’m sure as hell better than Bill is! I believe it would work wonders on the long faces in this camp, so I will ask.]]

\-----

Bill is gone when Beverly leaves her tent for the morning. Most everyone else is at work taking care of chores or lingering around the boiling pot of coffee hanging over a small fire. Beverly joins them there, adjusting one of many pins holding her hair up away from her face where it’s too short to reach her braid; a style chosen for practicality. 

A chorus of murmured greetings sounds off when she reaches the group and she responds in kind.

“Where’s Bill?” She asks.

“Took off with Ricky Lee,” Sandy tells her. Sandy is short and no-nonsense, which is exactly why Beverly likes her so much. “Lookin’ for work in town, I think.”

Not surprising, Beverly thinks. There’s always a bounty available for decent money, legitimate work instead of just robbin’ and takin’ and gettin’ more people lookin’ for them than there already are. 

She enjoys a rare peaceful morning, actually. A bunch of the gang are moving around, taking care of camp chores. The horses are groomed, shit shoveled, hay carried over for them to eat. Even Richie and Stanley are quiet, after Eddie Kaspbrak hollered at them that their noise was disrupting his ability to read his book. 

As usual, the peace can’t last long. 

Bill and Ricky Lee come thundering into camp on their horses in a rush, skidding to a halt just inside the entrance. 

“Mr. Kaspbrak!” Bill calls out, loud. “Over here!” 

That’s what grabs the attention of everyone else around camp. All activity comes to a stop. If Bill is calling out to the camp doctor with that tone, something has gone terribly wrong. 

Beverly stands to get a better look, prepared to do whatever is needed to help someone who has been injured. Bill and Ricky Lee are working together to pull a third figure down from the back of Silver, a slumped over roughed up looking man.

Kaspbrak is at their sides in a flash, mouth flying a mile a minute with questions, already looking over the mystery man held up between Bill and Ricky Lee. “What happened to him? Where’d you find him? Is he wounded?”

“Found him not far from here bein’ dragged away by a couple of Bowers’ boys,” Bill explains.

They drop the man onto a seat, making sure he’s comfortable enough leaning back against the wheel of one of their wagons. He groans in pain at the motion, but that at least means he’s awake and aware enough to feel his pain. Eddie crouches in front of him right away, looking him over with his eyebrows furrowed down over his eyes. 

“Stanley!” Eddie calls. “Grab my bag from my wagon, would you please?” 

Stanley nods and bolts. 

“Beverly?” She looks back over at him, ready to help. “A wet rag, please?”

She nods as well and hurries away to get the doctor what he needs, bringing back a bowl of water as well just in case. Eddie thanks her and Stanley both and returns to ignoring everyone except for their new mystery guest, wiping blood and grime from his face and checking him for wounds. 

Beverly stands nearby, close enough to hear the man respond quietly to Eddie’s questions at least to confirm that he hasn’t knocked his head hard enough to forget himself. He says his name is Ben, he was taken by Bowers’ gang for a debt he’d failed to pay back in full, that they were fixin’ to kill him once they had their fun with him. 

“Bill,” Richie hisses, approaching at Ben’s other side. “Are you sure about this?” 

“About what?” Bill asks, heated. 

“Takin’ from Bowers!” Richie gestures to where Ben is slouched on the ground. “You don’t think this is gonna bring him right to us again?”

“What would you prefer?” Bill’s voice is stern, pissed off. “Leave him for dead?”

“I don’t know!” Richie replies, never one to back down from Bill. Either too brave or too dumb. “I would prefer Henry Bowers _not_ comin’ to our camp and killin’ all of us!”

“He needed our help,” Bill says. “He’s someone’s brother, too.”

Everything clicks into place with that. Bill would do anything to save another soul from Bowers, of course he would. They were too late for Georgie and he blames himself for it constantly, as much as the gang tries to remind him it wasn’t a thing he could have predicted. Bowers is a mad man, a wild animal…

“I’m an only child,” Ben mumbles into his chest, head leaning forward so Eddie and search around his scalp for a wound.

“That’s great, Bill,” Richie sighs. “He’s an only child.”

\----

The next several hours that pass are tense. Ben sleeps on and off to pass through his pain. He needed only a few stitches to close up the wound on his head, the rest will heal up with a little time and care. 

Richie and Bill are still cross with each other, Stan has spent the better part of their afternoon at Richie’s side talking in low tones with him. It’ll all blow over, Beverly knows, but she hates when a disagreement runs through the camp like this. 

She spots Ben awake and sitting up in his borrowed cot, slouching low with his head in his hands, and heads over with a cup full of the finest watered down whiskey the Denbrough camp has to offer. 

“Might help with the pain,” she offers, holding the cup out to him. 

Ben smiles up at her, looking downright _bashful_ for an adult man. “Thank you, Mrs. Rogan.”

The name takes her by such a shock it’s a long moment before she replies. “Beg pardon?” 

“That is your name, right?” Ben asks. He waves in the direction of Richie’s tent. “Tall feller over there said you was married to a Mr. Rogan.”

“I was,” Beverly confirms. “And I killed him, so I don’t carry his name with me no more.”

“Sorry ma’am.” Ben blinks, face burning red and eyes refusing to meet hers. “Of course, Miss-”

“Beverly is fine,” she says. “Don’t much miss my daddy’s name neither.”

“Miss Beverly,” Ben repeats, looking impossibly more bashful. He waves his whiskey between them. “Thank you, again.”

\----

Beverly approaches Richie’s little setup (a cot, chest and table with only a canvas overhang to keep out the weather) with thunder in her steps. He’s sleeping, one knee raised and hat pulled down over his face to block out the light. 

She hurls the sopping wet rag from Ben’s cot at his chest and watches with glee when he jumps like a spooked cat. 

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doin’?” She barks. 

“What-“ Richie starts. “Me? What the hell are _you_ doin’?!”

“Yellin’ at you!” She clarifies since he is so dense to need it explained. 

Richie sits up on his cot, rubbing his face, ignoring the rag dropping to the dirt. “What’d I do?!”

“Told Ben I go by _Mrs. Rogan_.” She sneers through his name, as she has done for years. Best thing Tom ever did for her was die quickly. 

“I did not!” Richie yells back. 

Beverly gives a skeptical look. 

“I didn’t!” He insists. “He asked me if you was married and I said you _was_.”

She sighs an impatient groan and slaps his shoulder enough times he flinches away. “Learn to speak English you god damned buffoon.”

“My English is fine!” Richie yells as she stomps away in her huff. She forgot the soiled rag at Richie’s feet, but _he_ can clean it up. _She_ is going to go sit under a tree and enjoy a few rare moments of peace. 

\----

A day later, Richie and Stan’s paranoia is proven to be less misplaced than Bill believed it to be when Henry Bowers saunters into their camp like he owns the damn place. The moment he does, he has no less than six guns trained on him.

“Calm yourselves down,” he sneers, hands raised up next to his head. “I ain’t here to kill no one.”

Beverly sneaks a look toward Bill, standing in front of his tent, gun raised, face deathly pale. 

“I’m just here to take back what’s mine.” Bowers points over at Ben, arms still raised.

Ben looks ashen, struck dumb with fear at the sight of Bowers. Beverly knows the feeling. 

“He ain’t yours,” Bill says, voice cold. 

“He _IS MINE_ ,” Bowers screams. Always so hot-headed, always quick to anger, dangerous. “He _owes_ me money and he couldn’t pay up.”

“You can’t collect money from a dead man.” Bill is calm in the face of Bowers’ rage. 

Bowers laugh sends a chill down Beverly’s back, it’s one of the most evil sounds she’s ever heard in her life. 

“Fine, keep him.” He points at Bill, then at Ben. “But I expect my money, and the debt’s just doubled.”

Bowers turns and disappears back away from their camp, Beverly finds herself hoping one of the guns still aimed at him will take the shot and end his misery here and now. It would only bring more trouble and she knows it, but she also knows she won’t sleep easy knowing that Bowers knows where their camp is.

\----

She does get to make the stew she was so hopeful to make. It already feels like a lifetime ago that she dreamt up the idea, but she’s not the type either to just give up on her plans. 

Some of the way into cutting up the meat she was able to buy in town, Ben approaches her table with another shy smile aimed at her. 

“You mad at it?” He asks, eyeing the table. He looks much more handsome when he’s not covered in blood and grime, not that she’s taken notice. 

“At what?”

“The meat,” he answers. “You’re hackin’ at it like it personally offended you.”

Beverly snorts. “I’m just cuttin’ it.”

“You do all the cooking?” He presses further.

“Most of it.” She chops harder into the meat, struggling to work through some cartilage.

“Mind if I help?” Ben asks. He shrugs a shoulder a bit, waving a hand out as if expecting to be met with anger. “Only, I just want to earn my keep, and I know a thing or two about cooking.”

Beverly considers, looks him over. He doesn’t look to have the condescending air of a man who thinks he can _teach_ her something, but she has been fooled before. On the other hand, it would mean she no longer has to fight with the god forsaken meat in front of her on the table.

“Sure.” She hands him the knife and wipes her hands clean. “You do the meat, I’ll chop some vegetables.”

They work quietly together, in a peaceful quiet rather than a stilted and awkward one. She watches from the corner of her eye as he efficiently cuts the meat apart, removing it from the bone without wasting a scrap, big hands slicing easily through the bulk of it and throwing it into the big pot in front of them. 

“I’ll have to go out lookin’ for rosemary,” he mumbles almost more to himself than anything. “Should grow around here.”

Beverly does not look at the way his shirt pulls taut around his shoulders when he bends to stir the ingredients together over the fire, she doesn’t. She walks away and sticks her nose into a book until the food is ready, so preoccupied she forgets to thank Ben for his help. 

\-----

[[Journal Transcript: Seems like Ben is here with us to stay now no matter how disputed the decision has been among the rest of the gang. I see where those against his staying are standing, I know that they’re only concerned with the safety of the gang, but I agree with Bill. Someone has to show Bowers he ain’t free to do as he likes whenever he likes. It may be a risk, but we will be here and ready for whatever comes.

I believe that saving Ben is a first step toward healing for Bill. It don’t hurt that he is more gentleman than the rest of the slob men in this camp. Truly if it weren’t for Patty, Betty, and Sandy, I fear sometimes I would lose my mind livin round here.

I made my stew with the help of Ben. It weren’t the most expensive meat money could buy, but we all ate it together around the fire tonight. Richie led the gang in some of the filthiest campfire songs I have ever heard in all my years. I don’t rightly know if he made them up or they are real songs, but they made Sandy laugh so hard she choked on nothin but the air in her lungs. Even Eddie Kaspbrak had a smile on his face. Maybe it weren’t the stew alone, but spirits do seem lifted at least a bit. ]]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh to be smacked and called a god damned buffoon by beverly marsh.......


	3. Richie

[[Journal Transcript: Love came for my fool heart once again and once again I dove in like the great idiot I am. Feller named- well it don’t much matter, does it? Saw him in town gettin sweet on some woman not twelve hours after we was plenty sweet on each other.  
My next plan is to walk into the river and let it carry me off I reckon. 

God help this heart I was cursed with.]]

If Richie knows he himself is a fool, he thinks this must make Bill Denbrough the king of all fools. Bill is Richie’s leader, his brother. He would follow him to the ends of the Earth and probably will die for him one day, somehow. 

He loves Bill, but his obsession with rescuing folk from types like Bowers is going to get them _all_ killed one day.

This Ben feller seems good enough. He helps around camp and he treats everyone kindly, and he’s a better cook than Beverly and Bill ever managed to be even on their best days. He even knows a thing or two about butchering animals, so they can go out and hunt and save a decent amount by not having to go to the butcher in town. 

But Ben owed Bowers enough money he was willing to kill over it… He’s probably killed for less, sure, but it’s concerning to say the least.

After breakfast, Bill gathers everyone before they disperse off to their daily lives. They’re all stood near the fire, coffee boiling and crumbly remains of breakfast ready to be washed away. Bill looks as serious as they’ve ever seen him, not that he’s done much smiling since they lost Georgie.

“I know it was a shock, having Bowers show up at our camp like that,” Bill starts. He’s fixing up to make a proper speech, Richie can tell. “But we are _safe_ here, understood? We’re family. We protect each other.

Ben is part of the family now, too.”

He gestures toward Ben who is sitting a little ways separated from the main circle formed by everyone listening to Bill, looking damn near in tears.

“We protect him too, understood?”

There’s a low murmuring of agreement throughout the small crowd. Richie scans across the way, catching Stan’s eyes. Stanley is notoriously difficult to read, even for Richie who has known him for more years than he cares to count. He doesn’t look angry, but he doesn’t look pleased neither. He looks at Richie, and then back to Bill. 

“Our struggles are his, and his are ours.” Bill’s eyes dart face to face. Richie sometimes thinks that in a different lifetime he could have been a preacher with how much he revels in moving a crowd with his speeches. “He owed Bowers a debt, and it’s no small debt. It’s going to take some work to get there, but we will not let him die over it.”

“What’s the debt?” Kay McCall asks, always bold and to the point. 

“A thousand dollars,” Bill answers, just as unwavering as Kay.

A few people in the group audibly gasp, some glance over to Ben with a new respect, though Ben is staring blankly at his own shoes. Richie watches Stan’s shoulders droop, disappointment maybe, defeat, it’s hard to say. 

“A thousand dollars?!” Eddie Corcoran pipes up off to Richie’s left. “We should just keep the money and let Bowers have him!”

“Corcoran!” Mike barks, not raising his voice but carrying a deep admonishment all the same. 

“Turn Richie in while we’re at it.” he goes on talking anyway, as always. “He’s got a pretty price on his head, too.”

“ _Shut up_ , Corcoran!” Eddie Kaspbrak snaps this time, voice much harsher than Mike’s ever is. Kaspbrak is usually quiet, and carries a calm demeanor most of the time, but his fuse is short and he’s highly explosive. 

Richie wasn’t even all that offended really, he knows Corcoran is just blowing hot air like he always does. Loud mouthed idiot recognizes loud mouthed idiot after all.

“We’re in a new town,” Bill reminds everyone, louder, ignoring Corcoran’s outbursts. “A clean slate. Those who can should head into town and find work, _decent_ work. No robbin’ folk just yet, let us find our bearings first.

We can do this.”

The Denbrough gang are no strangers to helping them who need it when they can. Everyone in the gang has at least one story of Bill pulling through for them in some way. When Stan and Patty got chased out of their home, Bill brought them in, no questions asked. When Richie’s younger sister was deathly sick and Richie couldn’t go home to her, Bill went, he got her the care she needed. 

He has never backed away from the opportunity to help one of his family, and it has bred a fierce loyalty. They don’t agree to help Ben simply because Bill _tells_ them to, but because they trust that Bill has a plan. 

When they do ultimately disperse, Richie makes a beeline for Stan. He’s interrupted, though, by Bill stepping directly into his path.

“I need you here at camp today,” he says. 

“ _Why?_ ” Richie asks, flabbergasted. 

“ _Because_ ,” Bill replies with just the same energy. “No one has scoped out the town yet, and the last thing we need is you waltzing in during the middle of the day and walking right up past your own wanted poster.”

Richie sighs. It is, of course, a fair enough point, but it makes him feel useless and bored. By the time they’re done speaking, Stan is already dressed and gone off, likely hunting for available construction work in town.

This is how Richie finds himself, for the next several days, doing nothing more than campsite chores. He bales up hay and carries it off to the horses for feeding, brushes them and cleans up where they’re hitched. He stops to pet Popcorn, Georgie’s horse, right next to Silver. She looks lonely, but Richie might be imagining that. 

He helps Beverly with some washing down in the creek not far from camp, something Kay is happy to step away from for him. Beverly is just as stuck as he is thanks to the price she’s got on her own head, so they pass the time bitching and laughing and scrubbing together. 

“How’s Valentine treatin’ ya so far?” She asks. She has her simple dress tucked up around her knees so the frilly bottoms of her drawers poke out. “You look glum.”

Richie gives her a look of such deep dissatisfaction it makes her laugh right back at him. He has his own work pants and shirt sleeves rolled up to avoid getting too soaked. 

“Heartbreak already?” She wrings a shirt out in front of her like she wants to strangle it. One of Stan’s, he thinks. 

“I guess so.” It’s possible he has a bit of a habit almost, of fallin for every good looking man that so much as treats him kindly and getting his heart broken over it. 

She clicks her tongue, a pitying noise. “I’m sorry, Richie, truly.”

“You’d think I would know better by now.” He sighs, scrubbing one of his own shirts roughly against the washboard. 

“Oh, Richie.” Beverly drops the wrung out shirt into a woven basket that they'll carry back to camp to hang and dry. “There ain’t nothing wrong with wanting love.”

xxxx

The few of them that can take some bounty work, it’s a good way to get eyes and ears on who is wanted and what names are floating out there locally. Beverly is from far north, no one is looking for her way down here. Richie comes from a bit closer, other side of the mountains. His name isn’t posted, but they know that don’t mean he’s forgiven. 

He wants to work, though, for money, which means wandering into town during the day. Bill thinks it’s a stupid risk, but they find an agreement. Richie grows a beard and he can go out to work. He’ll be harder to recognize the bigger the beard is. It’ll take a while, a while longer of him cleaning up throughout the camp, but he has a newfound spring in his step after he and Bill agree. 

——

Stan comes back every day from the work he found dead tired. Patty fawns over him like he’s an injured baby deer, bringing him dinner and helping him pull off his boots. Richie sees a few times, it’s hard not to when their cots are set up so close to each other. He sees the way Stan smiles at her helping him. It churns in his gut. 

Often he falls asleep as soon as he’s in bed, waking up with the sun the next day to head back to town and go back to work. Richie misses him something fierce, and he knows Patty is just as bad. They whine together and laugh it off, teasing each other for sounding like a child that misses its mama. 

One afternoon Patty twists her ankle and takes a spill while out in the peripheries of camp, hunting for ingredients she and Ben had been discussing privately. Richie doesn’t know what they’re after, but he knows that since Ben has been out gathering plants the food at camp has never been better. 

Richie is writing on his bed, scribbling a drawing of a little bird he saw this morning in his journal when he hears her pained shout. He’s on his feet in an instant, too aware of the dangers that might lurk in the woods. 

“Patty?” He calls, bursting through the trees, almost frantic.

“Richie!” She calls back, not far off.

He scrambles until he finds her sitting up in the grass, basket spilled all around her, looking sheepish. 

“I misstepped,” she explains briefly. “Help me up?”

Patty holds her arms up to him and he helps her stand, but she’s unsteady and hisses sharply when she tries to take a step on her left foot. 

He bends, grabbing what herbs she had dropped and handing them back to her. Making sure she has a secure hold, he bends again and scoops her easily into his arms.

She lets out a surprised little ‘ _oh_!’ when he lifts her off her feet, then laughs.

They’re not far from camp, and so it’s not very long at all before Richie is waddling over toward Eddie’s medical wagon with Patty in his arms.

“What happened?” Eddie asks, eyes wide and surprised. Though his eyes are always wide, Richie guesses, big ol’ cow eyes blinking at whoever he’s talking to like saucers. “This what had you runnin’ outta camp like a snake bit you?”

“Uh-huh.” Richie grunts when he bends to set Patty very gently. “There ya go, Miss Patty.”

“I fell,” Patty explains to Eddie. “Trying to reach for some mint and my boot slipped on a rock.”

Eddie drops the book he was reading before and kneels in front of Patty, rolling up the sleeves of his soft looking red shirt messily. Richie sticks around and watches as he removes Patty’s boot and presses his fingers around her ankle, testing the bones and the range of movement with methodical hands. Patty takes it all well enough, only gritting her teeth when Eddie starts trying to rotate her foot in a circle.

“Don’t go tellin’ Stan I carried you up a hill today, okay?”Richie says. Patty laughs, distracted from her pain. “You know he’ll be jealous and have one of his fits.” 

“Do you ever stop?” Eddie asks without looking up from where he’s comparing Patty’s hurt ankle to her other one. 

“I ain’t so far, no.” Richie winks at Patty behind Eddie’s back when the doctor stands and leaves to go digging around inside of a well organized box. It makes her laugh again and the sound grabs Eddie’s attention for just a second, a quick glance and that’s it.

“Do you think it’s broken?” Patty asks. She looks worried, her ankle looks swollen and painful. Anyone else would be howling in pain. He’s sure _he_ would, anyway. 

“What’s the news, doc?” Richie presses further. “Do we have to cut it off?”

Patty snorts an indelicate sound and laughs loud and shocked. Even Eddie laughs then, maybe more at Patty than at Richie, but it very well could be the first time he’s ever seen a smile on Eddie’s face. 

It suits him more than Richie would have thought. 

“It’s just a sprain,” Eddie says. “Lucky for you. I’ll wrap it up and with a little rest you’ll be fine in a few days.”

Eddie wraps her foot up snug and secure in some cloth with gentle hands, careful touches. She tests her footing carefully, one hand on the side of the medical wagon and the other held in Richie’s hand, ready to move if she falls again. 

“Thank you, Doctor.” Eddie nods back at her. He still has the hint of a smile on his lips. “Thank you, too, Richie.”

“Miss Patty.” Richie bows low like she’s royalty, still keeping her hand held in his own to be safe. 

She turns away, headed back to her and Stan’s tent with only a little limp and Richie right behind her. 

“Richie,” Eddie calls before he can escape completely. 

It makes Richie look back and forth, torn between his interest in the questioning look on Eddie’s face and making sure Patty makes it back safely. The choice is made for him when Patty says “I can make it,” and slowly hobbles off. 

“You really got a price on your head?” Eddie asks. its not what Richie was expecting, but he supposes it’s not too shocking neither. 

“You think I’m lyin’ Eds?” Richie’s teases back. 

It’s common knowledge around camp that Richie and Beverly are both wanted, but they don’t exactly go bragging about it like idiots. 

“Don’t call me Eds.” Eddie makes a face so sour it erases any remaining traces of the smile he’d worn while Patty was still here. “I’m just askin’.”

“Yeah, I really do,” Richie confirms. “Killed a man back home.”

“You’ve been with Bill, what, ten years almost?” Eddie asks. “Because of that?”

“One ain’t enough?” It’s not the implication Eddie was aiming for, Richie knows that, he’s not actually as stupid as he looks. “You got a whole string of kills behind you?”

“No!” Eddie exclaims, abashed. “I just mean, you haven’t been home since then?”

“Weren’t just any man,” Richie admits. He hasn’t told this story in years, likely not since he first found Bill all that time ago. It’s no surprise Eddie doesn’t know the full thing, since he joined up about three years after that. “He was the sheriff’s son, and the deputy.”

Eddie gazes at him, wide-eyed.

“Town terror on top of that.” Richie can still picture the smarmy prick’s face in his mind’s eye clearly, the memory makes him sneer. “Set his sights on my kid sister when she was just fifteen and wouldn’t take no.

We had a fight, but he still came back a couple weeks later with some of his boys. So we had another fight, and that was it. Left him there on the ground and I never went back.”

\----

Richie is already in his cot when Stan gets back from his work. It’s not terribly late but Richie is beat from the day’s work and ready to call it a night. He ain’t exactly listening in, but he can’t help but hear most of their conversation anyway. Patty saved him food again, and even though it’s not very warm anymore Stan sounds as thankful as if she’d saved him a whole feast. 

He hears Stanley, after a while, ask about the wrapping on Patty’s foot. He’s obviously concerned, doubly so when he realizes she’s been hurt somehow. 

“I just fell,” Patty explains. “I tripped on a rock while out gathering.”

He can hear Stanley grumble and sigh. “I’ll get rid of all the rocks,” he says earnestly. “I’ll clear the entire forest so you can walk freely.”

Patty’s laugh when joking with Richie is entirely different to her laugh when talking with Stan. She giggles, almost, a smitten young girl despite the fact they’ve been together for years. “And what about the tree roots?”

“I’ll bury them all in dirt,” Stanley says. “So they don’t stick out at all.”

After this is when Richie takes a more active effort to stop listening to the tent next to his. Soon either they will continue to talk into the small hours or will be engaged in amorous congress, neither of which Richie finds any particular joy in listening to. 

xxxx

A couple weeks pass in this way, most of the camp off finding work for whatever money they can get, Richie growing out his beard while doing camp work until Bill is satisfied. It itches somethin’ fierce but it’ll be worth it once he’s allowed out again. 

He catches Eddie (Kaspbrak, that is, Corcoran is off during the day being a pain in someone else’s side) eyein’ him like a hawk once or twice while he works. Like he don’t know what he’s doing. Like he’s the type to do a half assed job at something. The first time he brushes it off, the second time he stomps over to Eddie’s wagon and watches his eyes go wide. 

“Why ain’t _you_ workin’ anyway?” He asks. It ain’t exactly fair, he knows that; but it’s hot, it’s humid, he stinks and he’s in a mood about it. 

Eddie’s expression snaps from shocked to pissed off in a heartbeat. “I _am_ workin’!”

“I mean out there!” Richie waves his arm vaguely in the direction of Valentine where everyone else is. “You’re young ‘n fit, why ain’t you off at Stanley’s construction job with him?”

“I can’t…” Eddie falls off into a mumble, face red. Richie can’t tell if it’s from anger or not, but Eddie don’t seem quite so mad as to turn red yet. (He’s seen it happen once, when he himself had dropped a box full of glass vials and broken them all and shouted like he was fixin’ to destroy the city with his voice alone.)

“You _what_?” He doesn’t even know why he’s prodding so much. Eddie surely don’t deserve it, but here they are either way.

“I-” Eddie goes suspiciously shifty-eyed, glancing out around them. One hand reached out and grabs Richie by his shirtsleeve, pulling him off to the side of the medical wagon. Not exactly private, but a bit hidden away from prying eyes. “Our old camp was closer to town and I could walk, but we’re far here, and I can’t ride.” 

Richie only stares.

“Horses,” Eddie clarifies, like Richie might have thought he meant dragons. “I never learned.”

“Ain’t you almost thirty?” Richie asks, bewildered. “What kind of an adult can’t ride horses?”

Instead of answering, Eddie gives Richie a look like he’d skin him alive if he could get away with it and stomps away toward the treeline, leaving Richie standing there alone and feeling like _he’s_ the asshole. He’s not, he tells himself.

Maybe they both are, a different part of his mind whispers.

It wouldn’t make much of a difference even if Eddie was out there with everyone else doing work. The pay ain’t bad but it’s still going to take them months to save all the way up to a thousand dollars. Richie hopes that whatever Ben borrowed that money for was worth it.

Betty Ripsom is the first to bring up the train. She heard rumor of it in town where she got a job playin’ piano at the saloon. They say a train is coming down from the north carrying gold for one of the banks farther south. Could be a good opportunity to get the whole debt at once and get Bowers off their backs. 

Bill shuts the idea down straight away, but not without some disagreement from the rest of the gang. They’re all well aware of the risk of a stunt like a train robbery, of course they are, but they know how much it could be worth it, too. Personally, Richie is on the fence. He recognizes that it probably ain’t the best idea at the current moment, but he also knows that if it went well it could solve almost all of their problems at once. 

It’s a tough call, he knows, but they have some time before they have to go ahead and make it.

xxxx

Life being so busy and unpredictable does more to distract Richie from his recent heartbreak than anything else he would have found himself doing, and for that he is most certainly thankful. 

Still, when Beverly approaches him one night with a full bottle of whiskey and a pointed nod toward the trees behind Richie’s cot ‘ _as a distraction_ ’ he doesn’t hesitate to agree. He nods a greeting over at Eddie, seating with his legs hanging from his wagon scrubbing out a series of glass bottles with a rag. Eddie doesn’t nod back, his eyes drop back down to his work at hand, pretending like he was never lookin’ in the first place.

They pass the bottle back and forth sitting against the trunk of a giant old tree. They talk about Bill and the gang, if Bill is really doing as well as he wants everyone to believe he is. They talk about their new camp and how decent the space is, words starting to blend together more the emptier the bottle gets.

“Wish we had some music down here with us,” Beverly remarks after taking a long pull from the bottle. She don’t even wince, Richie observes, distantly impressed.

In response, Richie starts to hum. Something slow and somber he thinks maybe he heard playing once through a window, but he can’t remember half of it so he just makes it up the best he can manage.

“Not that!” Beverly waves a hand around like she’s chasing off his sour notes like bees. “Something fun.”

Richie swings into humming _Daisy Bell_ to the best of his memory, which isn’t very great, but Beverly cheers like she’s at a live performance and jumps to her feet. She drags Richie with her, both of them clumsy and baby deer unsteady on their legs, using each other for balance as much as they are as a dancing partner.

He melds in and out of humming the tune and singing the words, only remembering bits of each. “ _I’m half crazy_ ,” he swings his notes too wildly and sends Beverly off into a peal of laughter as they spin together.

“Full crazy, I think,” she corrects him, still giggling. 

He pays her comment no mind, only spins her a touch faster so all of her concentration is spent up on staying on her own two feet. 

“ _My beautiful Daisy Mae!_ ” He finishes, too loud and out of tune to really be considered singing anymore. 

“That ain’t it!” Beverly cries, nearly boneless from laughter and dizziness combined.

They fall back against their wide tree trunk, cradled together between two large crooked tree roots, breathless and too hot even in the night air. 

Beverly takes another long drink from the bottle and hands it off to Richie again. He holds it in his lap, very nearly spilling it all over his legs when his one arm flails wayward.

“So what’s Ben like?” He asks. He’s barely had chance to speak to the man since he showed up, too busy scooping horse shit to even go say hello. Doing all this work for _his_ debt and Richie hardly knows anything about him.

“I don’t know, I hardly know him.” Beverly blinks, too rapidly to be natural. “He’s normal, I guess.”

“Normal?” Her answer seems off, too simple, too _stupid_ , but his brain is floating in so much whiskey it’ll be pickled in the morning, so he doesn’t think on it for too long. “I seen him teachin’ you to cut up deer and all you got is normal?”

It clicks, just briefly in his mind. Her deflection, her insistence, the fidgety way her fingers are pulling at the tattered end of her dress. He looks at her, and then he _Looks_ at her, knowing all too well what it is she refuses to face.

“No, not that.” She grabs the bottle back out of his hand violently, wrenching the whole thing into her own lap. She drinks again, deep. “I’m sworn off men forever.”

Richie grabs the bottle back. “ _Me too!_ “ He drinks for himself, head tossed back.

xxxx

[[Journal Transcript: If I thought doing manual labor around camp was tough, it don’t begin to compare to doing it with a hangover. I’m sitting over with the horses, presently. It’s nice and shaded and they seem to enjoy the company at least. That or they’re just pleased I got carrots. 

It’s quieter over here anyhow. Stanley’s usual morning chatter proved too much for me today Especially when the usual morning chatter resulted in Kaspbrak’s usual yelling about how loud we are. Don’t know why he gets in a fit about it anyhow, he’s the one that chose his plot when he knew full well just how loud we can be.

Can’t wait for this beard to grow in enough for Bill’s liking. It’s coming along, I hate how it itches, but I miss being able to roam. I miss the days I could be away from camp for days and no one minded or worried. Feels like all Bill does is worry sometimes. 

Kaspbrak confided he can’t ride horses. Now I know he’s from the big city and all but just what kind of young man never learned to ride? He refused to tell me anything else about it. Why bring something up then refuse to talk about it? He really is quite strange.]]

**Author's Note:**

> Mike's horse is named Rocambole, but Rock for short.


End file.
